Chapter 64: The Game of Chess (II)

Yan Zheng held his cigarette, the ash precariously balanced and nearly half formed. When Chen Yu uttered those two words, as if dropping two stones into a deep pond, they fell lightly but sent ripples through the air. His hand jerked suddenly. The fragile ash snapped and fell. The veteran detective, always proud of his composure in the face of calamity, now showed an unnatural stiffness in his facial muscles, his expression more complex than ever before.

Decades in the police force had honed his eyes into those of an eagle, able to see through any young upstart with ease. Yet this Chen Yu before him—he could not fathom. How did this kid know? How could he possibly know who the murderer was? All Chen Yu had done was walk around the crime scene, glance at the body, scan the evidence. He asked almost nothing, did almost nothing. Not even a second of the deduction show so beloved by those so-called detective contestants. Yet, out of nowhere, he named the killer?

How on earth did he do it?!

At this moment, Yan Zheng felt as if his decades of experience in criminal investigation had become a joke.

Meanwhile, Chen Yu, the instigator, watched Yan Zheng’s rare and fascinating expression with great interest. In his vision, streams of data danced madly. The most striking was the value representing heart stress.

[Name: Yan Zheng]
[Heart Rate: 95 (Extreme astonishment and shock)]
[Stamina: 75 (Still vigorous)]
[Favorability: 75 (Strong trust)]
[Purity: ?? (Does it matter?)]

Just now, when Chen Yu spat out the words “Liu Gang,” Yan Zheng’s heart rate had shot up to 98!

Chen Yu even worried for a moment that the old man might, from sheer agitation, put on an absurd show of cerebral hemorrhage right in front of him. Fortunately, the old fox’s physical constitution was much tougher than expected.

“How did you… guess that Liu Gang was the killer?” Yan Zheng’s heart rate gradually calmed, though still hovered above eighty, as he fought to suppress his inner storm.

His face regained its trademark calm, but deep within his eyes there was endless admiration—and wariness.

“I answered quite a lot of your questions just now,” Chen Yu responded, not directly answering but tossing the question back. “Isn’t it your turn now?” He countered, “Captain Yan, how did you determine he was the killer?”

The question was exquisitely sharp.

Of course, Chen Yu could not reveal his own reasons. He couldn’t possibly tell him he had a cheat—his system’s ‘Rewind’ function let him watch the crime scene like a movie. If he said that, Yan Zheng would send him straight to the psychiatric ward.

But Yan Zheng was different. As an official branch, their city’s detective squad surely possessed mountains of evidence and clues unknown to him. All these clues pointed to one person.

Liu Gang!

Yan Zheng took a deep drag, inhaling the hot smoke, mixing it with the agitation and shock in his chest, and slowly exhaled. The dense white smoke blurred his complicated expression.

He suddenly laughed. Shaking his head as he smiled, the laughter was both helpless and relieved.

“You kid… truly opened my eyes.”

The praise slipped out, unrestrained.

“I don’t know how much you know, but since we’ve come this far, I might as well tell you everything.”

Yan Zheng threw the spent cigarette to the ground, crushing it with his shoe. His gaze sharpened like a blade.

“Liu Gang.”

He repeated the name, his tone full of sighs.

“What an unexpected suspect, right? Who would’ve thought the killer would be him?”

“Of course, even now, we have no direct physical evidence to convict him.”

“But…”

“The truth is already emerging, isn’t it?”

Chen Yu remained silent, listening.

“You should know, the victim Zhang Luoluo was also one of the contestants in the reality show ‘Cold Cases Revisited.’”

“For reasons unknown, she was secretly investigating the serial dismemberment case from fifteen years ago!”

“Maybe she sensed the show’s next case would revisit the old mystery, so she prepared in advance. As for how long she investigated, or what she discovered, we… have no idea!”

“How do you know all this?” Chen Yu timely interrupted.

“She was too impatient,” Yan Zheng said with regret. “She hinted to her father’s secretary to probe Qingzhu. To catch bigger fish, I told Qingzhu to deliberately leak some harmless old files.”

Old fox!

Chen Yu rolled his eyes inwardly, realizing the term fit the old man perfectly.

“The day before Zhang Luoluo was murdered—she found something crucial and suddenly arranged a private meeting with Liu Gang!”

“Wait!” Chen Yu interrupted again, his gaze piercing Yan Zheng. “You mean, you’ve been surveilling Liu Gang all along?”

“For how long?”

Chen Yu’s tone brimmed with undisguised shock.

“Oh?” Yan Zheng grew interested at Chen Yu’s question. “How did you know we were surveilling Liu Gang and not Zhang Luoluo?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Chen Yu sneered. “Zhang Luoluo may be a contestant, but she’s at best an accidental intruder in the whole case, nowhere near the core! Besides, she’s Zhang Fu’s precious daughter—you know better than me how hard it is to watch her without alerting her father.”

“This world doesn’t have an omnipresent ‘Sky Eye’ system,” Chen Yu shrugged, forcing a smile. “You can’t monitor Liu Gang’s every move with just a few cameras, so you’re left with the dumbest yet most effective method.”

“Send someone to follow him around the clock!”

“Sky Eye? What’s that?” Yan Zheng frowned, unfamiliar with the term.

“Uh… not important!” Chen Yu, excited, almost let slip something from his previous world, quickly glossed over it.

“You’re right.”

This time, Yan Zheng no longer hid anything, admitting frankly, “We have indeed been surveilling Liu Gang. And for a very, very long time!”

“Why?” Chen Yu pressed.

“Because Liu Gang is odd from head to toe!” Yan Zheng paused, searching for words, then continued, “Liu Gang and his brother-in-law Luo Xiangdong are both highly educated—top students from Jiangcheng University’s biology department, though Liu Gang graduated three years after Luo Xiangdong.”

“After graduation, he gave up better options and plunged into Luo Xiangdong’s research institute, working on exactly the same projects as Luo Xiangdong did!”

“Plus, he’s Luo Xiangdong’s brother-in-law. His own wife was one of the victims in the old dismemberment case…”

“Tell me, how could we possibly ignore such a key figure with so many suspicious points?”

“At the research institute, does Liu Gang use scalpels?” Chen Yu caught the crucial detail.

“Of course,” Yan Zheng replied. “Though they mostly dissect plants, years of practice mean their knife skills are on par with surgeons!”

“So…” Chen Yu felt the fog in his mind clearing bit by bit.

“You started surveillance because of Luo Xiangdong’s case, only to discover Liu Gang’s deeper connection to the fifteen-year-old dismemberment case?”

That fleeting flash of insight returned to Chen Yu’s mind.

This time, he caught it!

Luo Xiangdong! Liu Gang! Biology research institute! Dismemberment case!

These seemingly unrelated clues were suddenly strung together by an invisible thread.

Yan Zheng nodded heavily, saying nothing, but giving tacit confirmation.

“You suspect Liu Gang’s wife was also murdered by him fifteen years ago?” Chen Yu asked.

“No.”

Yan Zheng denied firmly.

“Liu Gang and his wife grew up together, childhood sweethearts, deeply attached, witnessed by all. He had no motive to kill her!”

“Then why would he kill Zhang Luoluo?” Chen Yu was thoroughly confused.

Yan Zheng’s gaze turned icy.

“The day before Zhang Luoluo died, she and Liu Gang met alone in an abandoned house—a blind spot in our surveillance.”

“What happened inside, what was discussed, we couldn’t investigate.”

“But!”

“When they came out, our agent saw Zhang Luoluo walking briskly, organizing a recorder in her pocket!”

“Afterward, Liu Gang rushed out and the two argued fiercely.”

Yan Zheng stared at Chen Yu.

“You know what happened next.”

“The recorder was found, but the memory card had vanished!”

“So…” Chen Yu picked up, his voice turning cold.

“You suspect… Zhang Luoluo recorded some earth-shattering secret about Liu Gang, so Liu Gang murdered her to silence her and took the memory card?”